Wednesday, 27 July 2011

A society of patriotic ladies, at Edenton in North Carolina: satire of American women from Edenton, North Carolina, pledging to boycott English tea in response to Continental Congress resolution in 1774 to boycott English goods; text reads: "We the Ladys of Edenton do hereby solemnly Engage not to Conform to that Pernicious Custom of Drinking Tea, or that we the aforesaid Ladys Promote the use of any Manufacture from England, until such time that all Acts which tend to Enslave this our Native Country shall be Repealed": Philip Dawe, 1775, for R. Sayer & J. Bennett, publishers, London (British Cartoon Collection, Library of Congress)

Ever wonder why in photos the Tea Party all-stars frequently appear with the tops of their heads not seen? Could it be because their heads, reverting to the original interstellar dimensions, like those of the curious conehead ladies in the above historical lithograph, keep getting outlandishly bigger? Is the truth about to out, or will it merely be the cones? Are these beings just here on this planet for a visit? Could it be they plan on sticking around only until the old and the sick and the poor have been eliminated, or might they have larger designs? Is this part of a Master Plan hatched in some distant galaxy where the ruling classes ensure their own grip on power by refusing taxes on their country-club greens fees? If we turn over what's left of this longsuffering degraded and depleted planet to them, will they settle for merely having colonized us, and depart for the deep asteroid belts from under which they crawled out in the first place?

The Coneheads at Home: still from Saturday Night Live episode, 16 April 1977 (Saturday Night Live Archive)

Tea Party candidate Michele Bachmann launches her campaign for the 2012 US presidential elections: photo by JeffHaynes/Reuters, via The Guardian, 27 June 2011

Greenpeace airship with optimistic artist's rendering of the tops of the heads of oil billionaires and major Tea Party funders David and Charles Koch, flying over Rancho Mirage, California as they convene their latest political strategy meeting: photo by Gus Ruelas/Greenpeace, via The Guardian, 30 January 2011

12 comments:

Well, this is very funny (even though I think that the relatively amorphous Tea Party makes for an insufficiently precise target) and I love the illustrations. I would settle for targeting zealots on both sides. We're a little past laughing in our house now, though, and are anxiously waiting for this show to be over and for the next one to begin. There's a Bob Marley remark I've always really liked where he said: "Me no politician, me just suffer the consequences." I don't know whether you saw this, but this morning's Rasmussen poll records that 46% of likely voters believe that most members of Congress are corrupt. Apparently, that's a record figure, but I always assumed this to be the case. Curtis

Actually, Ed, Laraine Newman (aka Connie Conehead, one of the actors who appears in the Coneheads photo) is Jewish. If the analysis were as easy as you suggest, i.e., that all "members" of the amorphous "Tea Party" (a political "party" without, as far as I know, actual members), life itself would be easy and all our problems would easily be solved. But it isn't. Suggesting that vast numbers of people you don't know, have never met, and are unlikely to meet and speak to, are racists pure and simple sounds incredibly bigoted to me. President Obama was elected by a substantial margin that included a lot of people who are now apparently highly disappointed by his job performance. Results count. Curtis

President Obama will, l suspect,, be "presidential"and at the last moment go with the 14 th amendmentescape clause... and "save the day"the Repubs just postponed voting on Boomer's planbecause he doesn't have the votes !

meanwhile, sneaky-sneaky, the wire-tapping legislation is being put through while all of this other bull-shit is happening to distract the voting masses

Well, you're both right and prescient. Watching the South Carolina and Texas Tea Party congressmen last night first ostentatiously adjourn to pray (in what was described as an ornate chapel in the Capitol Building) and then publicly and weirdly pontificate, desert their party leadership, and finally scuttle the debt ceiling vote, I have to conclude that they are indeed visitors from another planet -- one to which they need to return as soon as possible. They don't seem to enjoy life (as we know it) on our planet. Good grief -- I'm now agreeing with Nancy Pelosi. What hath the Coneheads wrought? Curtis